Lessons from Mary Oliver

Poetry; words arranged in a lyrical format, derived, initially, from songs, sung around the fires of ancient storytellers . For most of my life, I adhered to this conventional definition. My experiences with the medium were limited to the occasional evening where, pen in hand, I would pour over a verse, and it’s ascribed analysis, with academic fervour.

My favorite poem was “The Lady in Shalott,” though, when the name was uttered, I didn’t picture barley swaying in a cool, midnight breeze, nor the river, scattered with fragrant water lilies, flowing down to “towered camelot” . I saw it as pictured in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, water stained, time new roman font. A wavering red line beneath “shallop.”

Poetry, then, was one dimensional, constrained to a flat page. If defined as a median to another world - as I think it justly should - then I was stuck at the door, entranced by the sheen of the doorknob, running my hands along the grainy wood, but, somehow, forgetting its function - as a portal to somewhere else, somewhere inconceivable, somewhere residing only in willing imagination.

I received Mary Oliver on Christmas day; a thin booklet with shiny cover and small, ant like words, scattered sparingly across the pages. Idly, I flipped through the anthology, and read:

“ the slow

washing away of the water

in which they feed,

in which the blue shells

open a little, and the orange bodies

make a sound,

not loud,

not unmusical, as they take

nourishment, as the ocean

enters their bodies.”

The act of reading, however, was not registered, and I felt, rather, stones beneath my feet, a musky, fermenting odour, punctuated by pine needles and sea; glinting eyes, reflected in the sun. Her words mingled memory and imaginings, stitching together richly coloured places in a handful of words, strung haphazardly together. For several weeks afterwards, I kept her collection in my bag as a sort of safety blanket; a rich reserve of memories that, although belonging to a stranger, were vaguely familiar; dazzling, and fresh, yet still somehow drenched in nostalgia. She said what I could not begin to express, gave voice to feelings and places entrenched, darkly, within the murk of my mind. On January seventeenth, 2019, she died. Abrupt, a black headline reading “Mary Oliver, 83, Prize Winning Portrait of the Natural World, Is Dead.” I didn’t bother reading the article.

But who was Mary Oliver? A poet, who gave us mere splinters of herself, manifested in poems that could be interpreted in a thousand different ways. She disclosed very little of her life, wanting her work to speak for itself . The few salvaged was collected through interviews, and stitched together like a fraying narrative, composed chiefly of gauzy speculation and yawning gaps . Born in the inauspicious suburbs of Cleveland, her childhood was delineated as “unhappy,” and family “dysfunctional.” Besides these words - that leave much unspoken - is a dark undertow that crops up, at times, in her words. She never liked small spaces, houses, closed rooms - but seeked the out-of-doors, and often went roaming, scribbling as she walked. To her, this was how the imagination was transcribed into words; not via the glowing screen of a computer, but by the physical formation of words, hand in direct contact with the page. I, unfortunately, am typing this post - but have managed to seat myself by a window.

In the ‘50s, she attended university, never received a degree, and moved to Provincetown several years later. There, she roamed, and foraged for food, collecting her words in several anthologies, winning accolades and national fame. There, also, she met Molly Cook - a photographer and later life partner until her death in the late 2000s. From there, she moved to Florida - a landscape perhaps less romantic then the forest speckled bays of Maine - and perished there, in a condo.

She dwelled upon every detail the world had to offer - absorbed her surroundings, yet produced short, sparing lines. Her poetry was piercing - crystal clear, purged of “decoration.” As a writer, her poems taught me to be accessible, to find a common ground that nearly everyone could clamber towards. As a reader, to observe, then report - but spend more time observing, and “staying amazed” with my surroundings. The day to day routine of showering, working, driving, playing, and other endless “ings” becomes monotonous - an constant grind that wears the soul into a calloused nub. Yet Mary Oliver showed us we needn’t endure this fate - from the same state , the same city, the same woods she had wandered many a time, she extracted a cornucopia of words, some melancholy, others dainty, or vague, - all beautiful, and rich. There is something marvellous in the mundane, something that rests everywhere - we only need to look up.

In one poem - her most notable - she asked a question, one I, as with most youth (and adults) tend to allot only a hazy answer to:

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild, and precious, life?.”

I, equipped with Mary Oliver’s inmutable advice, plan to experience it.

(and now, I shall have to take a walk)